GrahamG

Hi guys,

I did have norton.. bought it a year ago. Now i need a new one.. Not sure what to go for.

AVG have a Free one but never seems to do up dates.

Can anyone suggest good software with a firewall?

Cheers
G.

mike1210

I can but it wont be free.........sorry

Id spend a little money on a decent anti-virus package. not something you can afford to skimp on to be honest.

Im using Nod32 for anti-virus but if you want a firewall as well you'd be better off getting a security suite like Zone alarm internet security and the like, which has a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware all rolled into one

Edited to add the general premise here and on several other websites is that AVG isnt much cop to be honest

Dracoro

I use AVG. It updates most days as far as I can see. I've NEVER had my pc go down due to a virus in 2 years use of AVG.

Regardless, I backup regularly so if things do go **** up, I can just restore.

As per other thread I just replied to, do you have a business critical reason to have a pc well protected at all times?

I use XP sp2 firewall. No probs so far.

Best thing about my solution, it's free.

Alas

Yep I get a message from AVG at least once a week with new updates. Never had a prob since I've been using it.

Iain Young

AVG is complete and utter rubbish. It does not update frequently, it does not catch anywhere near all the viruses out there, when it detects a virus it often cannot remove it, it has no spyware protection at all, it's pretty bad on taking up system resources, and it can be a nightmare to uninstall.

You'd be far better of going for something like McAfee, Kapersky etc. Yes you have to pay for it, but it's not a lot of money and you'll have something that actually works properly...

Dracoro

My computer doesn't **** up. To my mind, that means that it's working OK. Fair enough, there are better out there but that's not to say AVG is crap. A crap anti-virus lets your computer get fooked which, ime, hasn't happened to me under avg.

Frequency of updates - avg does daily for me if you click update. Every few days if you leave it to itself. AFAIR there's an option to set how often it checks for updates.

No matter what AV you use, it's FAR FAR more important to backup regularly.

GrahamG

I will look into. not happy with AVG. will give it another go though.

ScoobyDriverWannabe

( i got a nasty virus yesterday.

Ran AVG it found a few files but it couldnt remove alot of them.

Left my computer on overnight and did a full scan with hitman pro. Thats one of the best pieces of software available in my opinion. It uses virus definitions from a couple of anti virus tools aswell as about 10 spyware removal tools.

Currently running another scan with symantc system check and found another 4 virus's.

i think best thing to do is use a few different ones as some may pick up things other anti virus's may miss.

jowl

I've never really had a problem with AVG. It's certainly quick, takes up little system resources and doesn't crash at all.

I'm not sure where Iain gets that from. Thats not just a single machine either.

Having said that, I've changed my main machine to Avast. That seems to slow startup time and is a little slower but overall it's pretty good. And it's detected a couple of things AVG didn't but nothing major and one was false.

richs2891

Well I have three pc's at home, one running avast, one running AVG and one running Kaspersky. AVG is defiantely the easist to use for non techinal users, it works, update happily. Avast - I dont really like the interface, but does give good warning on its on access scanner especially when on the web, but Can be a little silly annoying to set up first time.
Kaspersky, again works well but its not as easy to set up as AVG. Update well and does get good reviews at the moment. Only downside is that its not free. All pc's running XP SP2.
Richard

ru'

Get a broadband router with hardware firewall, don't open dodgy email attachments, keep windows up to date and don't download dodgy filesharing applications (or if you do then run a free on-line virus scan).

Simple.

Or do you have kids who use the PC?

Daz34

It's never that simple

davidpa

I use the fire zonealarm and free anti virus called avast this updates almost every day .

www.zonealarm.co.uk
www.avast.com

ScoobyDriverWannabe

Looks like i not gonna be able to get rid of these virus's i got looks like its gonna have to be a format

davidpa

what's actually happening with your pc?

are you running several anti virus programs at once, as they can interfere with each other.

mike1210

http://www.av-comparatives.org/seite...se_2005_11.php

worth a look methinks

many viruses wont do any obvious damage, but are running the background steeling info from your PC. Pays to have one with a high detection rate

ru'

I am!

Iain Young

I got that from the independant benchmarking and antivirus comparison websites that were posted a while ago, (I'd do a search for the post, but search is broken). In all the tests, AVG came out slower, and detected far less than all the other pieces of software. It also had more troubles removing infections than any other checker.

You get what you pay for.

I've also had the misfortune to try and recover several pcs which had the avg software installed and had been infected by viruses etc that it had missed. It's not a good piece of software at all.

McAfee etc also offer spyware protection (something that AVG doesn't even attempt)...

Daniel-S

Hiya Guys my Dad gives Keiro firewall

Microsoft Anti Spyware because it stops thing coming in i.e. spyware anti browser hijack

SP2 Firewall

and

AVG the ol' three thumbs fresh.



Ad aware as a back for the Microsoft Spyware.

You can confiqure Avg to update daily or manually.

They are all FREE and don't bloat the system

Hope that helps

Iain Young

Yes, AVG might be free, but it doesn't work very well either

Dracoro

Let's face it. When the 'big' killer virus comes around, it won't matter which AV you have, your PC will get fooked. Most viruses aren't 'that' bad but one day a killer one will be made.

So as I said, have whatever anti virus you feel best, however what's FAR MORE IMPORTANT is making regular backups. How many here pay £30/40/50 etc. a year for AV yet never make backups

Daniel-S

Could be to do with how its set up mate.

Iain Young

Erm, no I don't think so somehow

Daniel-S

What do you mean by that?

Iain Young

What I mean by that is that AVG is extremely easy to set up. There's nothing that the user can do in the setup of the product that will improve it's (lack of) effectiveness...

GrahamG

whats does everyone think of Norton??

Iain Young

Does a good job of catching viruses, but it does use a lot of system resources. Runs better on faster computers...

mike1210

Iain Young

Yep. I think that was the one

StickyMicky

just uninstall your norton and re install it?

i think i was running 2002 for about 3 years doing that

the updates get bigger and bigger each time you reinstall